I Loved You First by Reena Jacobs

Alexandria (Alex) Carmichael guards two secrets close to her heart. One—she’s in love with her best friend, Seth. Two—he’s gay.

As a freshman in college, Alex looks forward to fun times with her best friend. When Seth decides cycling through girlfriends is the way to fit in with the straight crowd, Alex must make a choice: watch Seth give his affections to another while her heart breaks or come clean with her feelings and risk losing his friendship forever.

I Loved You First was a quick and enjoyable book – I really liked it. Alex and Seth are in college and have been bff’s since elementary school. At some point in their relationship Alex fell in love with Seth. Unfortunately for Alex, Seth is gay.

I have to say, I love the name Alex for a girl! Love, love, love it! At first I wasn’t feeling Alex, though. I mean, I liked her, but she was so content on being Seth’s shadow and following him around like a puppy, and that drives me crazy. However, I liked her more and more as the story went on, and was 110% behind her by the end. I felt bad for Seth, trying to hide who he was from everyone. It made me mad the way he treated Alex sometimes, but at the same time I could understand where he was coming from. I didn’t care as much for him as I did Alex, but to fair, we didn’t get his point-of-view like we did hers.

This was a great story of self discovery. Alex and Seth were both very dependent on each other, using each other for their own needs. Alex turned into his sidekick, willing to be unnoticed and in Seth’s shadow because she loved him. While Seth dragged her from party to party and other events she really didn’t want to go to, because he needed her as sort of a buffer or excuse to get away from certain situations. All of that changes over night while they are at a frat party. That’s when both of them have to figure out just who they really are, or choose to be. With the support of Trinity, a new girl, Alex realizes what a healthy friendship should be like. I loved Trinity. She was independent, supportive, non-judgmental, and best of all she knew how to put jerks in their place.

I love stories that can make me change my opinion of a character throughout the book. Even some of the supporting characters didn’t turn out like I thought… or hoped. Which is good, because people in real life don’t always turn out like you thought they would.

Thanks for the wonderful review, Christy. I totally missed this review when it went up. I added it to the blog tour. Anyone who comments here or Dink's interview, which went live today is welcome to enter the giveaway for a signed copy of I Loved You First. Details are posted at the top of my blog: http://reenajacobs.com/blog

Beth ~ As for the song? 🙂 Try Samson by Regina Spektor. I was listening to the song one day, and she sang the line “I Loved You First” and knew that was it!

Lisa ~ I totally encourage you to take Christy's above advice. Of course, I'm rather bias. haha